And now according to a new study, they're also much more likely
to be in physical pain.

Published recently in the Journal of
Pain, the
study looked at incidences of chronic pain in people
aged 18 to 49 and found significantly higher rates among those
living in lower income areas as compared to more affluent areas.

The report notes that "[l]iving in a lower [socioeconomic status]
neighborhood was associated with increased sensory, affective,
and 'other' pain, pain-related disability, and mood disorders."

In a survey of about 3,700 adults, the researchers also found
higher rates of chronic pain among African Americans.

These correlations aren't particularly surprising. A large number
of factors tend to play into why discrepancies exist between
people in low income neighborhoods and those in higher income
neighborhoods.

As our own Richard Florida explained last fall in his
article "America's
Great Dental Divide," income is hardly the only data
point that explains, in this case, why some people go to the
dentist and others don't:

Dental visits closely track socioeconomic class. They are much
higher in states where a higher percentage of the workforce is
employed in knowledge, professional, and creative work. The
creative class is significantly associated with dentist visits
(.31).

The same is true of the share of college graduates, a measure
of the knowledge base and human capital in a state. The
correlation between dental visits and college grads is even
higher (.65). On the flip side, visits to the dentist are
negatively associated with the working class share of a state’s
workforce (-.28).

Access to health insurance, for example, also plays a role in who
sees a dentist, or any other health professional for that matter.
In lower-income areas, there's a higher chance that peoples' jobs
don't provide health insurance, which might make someone more
likely to simply deal with that bum leg than go get it checked
out.

And it's often the case that one ailment leads to another,
creating a cycle of medical or pain issues that only get worse.

The fact that more people in lower-income neighborhoods
experience more chronic pain should be an indication that better,
more accessible and more affordable preventative health care is
needed in these areas. Until that need is met, the cycle will
likely continue.